


Game Over

by icespyders



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alpha Timeline, Gen, Post-Scratch, Sadstuck, alpha guardians - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 04:59:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/606075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icespyders/pseuds/icespyders
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PLAYER 1: GAME OVER<br/>CONTINUE?<br/>He wasn't supposed to remember the session. None of them were. The scratch should have erased everything.<br/>But everyone knows that nothing in SBURB ever happens how it's supposed to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Game Over

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this at the back of my mind for months...I was inspired by a couple posts I saw on tumblr a while back, about what if the alpha 'verse guardians remembered their past session. There was one post specifically about John remembering as he played piano, and the idea really stuck in my mind, so I wrote this to expand on the concept. So, enjoy.

John Crocker sat down at his piano and smiled.

The sun was shining brightly, with the faintest whisper of a breeze rustling the leaves of the trees outside. Really, he was wasting the day by spending it indoors, but such was the burden of being a dedicated pianist.

The instrument was his most prized possession. It was beautiful, a gleaming dark surface and pristine keys and perfectly tuned. Not playing it at every opportunity would be a crime.

He rolled up his sleeves and started to play.

The melody came easily, flowing from his fingers and wafting about in the air like the breeze outside. It filled his neatly-kept living room and seemed to swirl around him, and he couldn’t help but grin wider. He always felt whole at his piano.

His fingers wandered the keys and his mind wandered too; he was extremely talented and well-practiced, so much so that he could play without even looking. Like how some people found they could think best before falling asleep or while in the shower, John’s mind seemed to work best while he was playing. It relaxed him like nothing else could.

So his mind wandered as the music played on. He thought about his sister.

His smile dimmed and the music grew more somber, reflecting his mood. Thinking about Jade always made him sad. He missed her greatly. Of course she wrote to him, but she was incessantly on the move and he could never really write her back. There was so much he wished he could tell her, but it all boiled down to “I just want you to come home.” He knew she wouldn’t ever come back, he knew that Jade didn’t mean to hurt him and just needed to forge her own path in life, but he couldn’t entirely quash the little flicker of hope that she’d return someday, nor could he fill the void that had opened when she left. Simply put, he missed his sister.

_I miss all of them._

John blinked and snapped out of his reverie; his hands had paused over the piano keys. He had the strangest feeling but couldn’t put a name to it.

He shook his head and started playing again, started thinking again.

He wondered where Jade was right now. She always wrote about all the incredible things she saw in her travels around the globe and all the things she was learning. It was October now, starting to get cold, and he hoped she found someplace nice and warm and safe. Maybe she’d have a permanent residence soon so he could send her a birthday present this year. Her birthday was the first week in December. He wasn’t sure what to get, but he wanted to get something, at least, just to show he was thinking of her.

_Pumpkin seeds,_ his brain suggested. _She likes gardening. She can grow them in her conservatory._

He smiled and stared out the window. _Yeah, that sounds nice. She’ll like that._

His brow furrowed. _What conservatory?_

Come to think of it, he could never remember Jade having a particular inclination for gardening. Why did he think she did? Had she mentioned it in one of her letters, perhaps, and he’d just forgotten? He wracked his brain but couldn’t find an answer, he just had this strong gut feeling with no logic behind it.

_Jade loves gardening,_ some part of his brain insisted. _She grows all sorts of things in her conservatory._

When had Jade ever mentioned a conservatory? What the hell was he rambling on about? This voice in his head sounded so foreign, just informing him of things that didn’t make any sense.

_You should start working on those presents. All three of them have their birthdays in December, after all,_ the voice went on.

_All three of **who**?_

With a start, John realized he had been playing all this time, was still playing. But he didn’t recognize the tune.

His hands flew off the keys mid-melody and he stared at the piano blankly. What had he been playing? Sure, he was a good pianist, but he couldn’t just compose on the fly like that, without even thinking about it.

The notes replayed themselves in his head; he hummed along experimentally, trying to identify the sound. No, he had no idea what it was. He was sure he’d never heard it in his life. And yet it was so familiar…it reminded him of Jade somehow. Maybe he’d just forgotten. Maybe it had been a song he’d heard her play once or something that was just coming back to him because he was thinking about her. Yes, that was all, just a half-forgotten, lingering memory. Nothing strange.

_It’d sound better with violin, wouldn’t it?_ That voice seemed to be prompting him, but he didn’t know why. No one he knew played violin; why would he be trying to fit a violin into the song?

He put his hands on the keys again and started a new melody. It felt natural as he progressed through the notes and keys and chords; the song was simple, but he didn’t mind. The breeze outside picked up, soared through his open window and ruffled his hair, and that felt natural too. As if the wind was a part of him…

_It’s my birthday. I’m thirteen years old._

He blinked.

_What? No it isn’t…I’m not thirteen…what the hell?_

The melody picked up and he realized that, again, he had no idea what it was, but he couldn’t stop playing it. It was as if his fingers and hands had become independent of his mind, had stopped obeying him and were instead choosing to play this song he didn’t know. But he had to know it; why would he be playing it?

_It’s called ‘Showtime.’ You composed it. Don’t you remember? You were very proud of it, you used to play it all the time. Dave remixed it, don’t you remember?_

For a minute it all made sense, but then he realized it was all wrong. _I didn’t compose this. Never mind playing it, I’ve never even heard it before. And…who’s Dave?_

For some reason thinking that made the tiny nagging voice in the back of his head upset.

_Don’t tell me you don’t remember. You have to remember,_ it pleaded, sounding almost desperate. _They’re your best friends!_

The melody he was playing shifted and suddenly, pictures and faces began to bloom in his mind’s eye. There was Jade, but she was younger, practically still a child, her hair wild and tangled and free, toting a rifle and smiling. And then out of nothingness appeared two strangers, people he was sure he was never seen in his life, and yet there they were in his mind, somehow remembered, and their names were just barely out of his reach. Two more kids, a boy in sunglasses with a sword and a girl wearing a headband wielding knitting needles, who looked like brother and sister, smiling out at him…what were their names?

The music grew louder and permeated every part of him, his hands free of his mind’s influence, maniacally pounding out a song he didn’t know, and suddenly it all flooded back.

_It’s my birthday and I’m thirteen years old, I have a dad and he keeps baking me cakes, I have three best friends and I have…I have a game…we’re going to play a game…_

He realized now that the voice was his own, a past voice, the voice of his thirteen-year-old self, and now his head was aching like it was splitting open, like he was splitting into himself and this past child-self who was yelling in his mind.

_No, it wasn’t a game, though, it was something else, something more. We…we had to save the world, save the universe, we were…we were heroes! I was…I’m a hero! I’m the…the…_

Symbols and colors flashed before his eyes and his fingers hit the keys fanatically, he was a man possessed, his head was pounding with half-remembered details.

_Jade…my sister…in her hood, with her planets and she’s glowing green and her ruby-red slippers and striped socks and she’s…the Witch, the Witch of Space…_

His mind felt like breaking.

_My friends…one of them, her name’s…what’s her name? Rose, it’s Rose, she’s got a hood too, all in orange, that big sun on her shirt and blue ballerina slippers and she was looking for a way to break it, to break the game, to scratch it? And she’s the…she’s Light, she’s the Seer of Light!_

His head hurt, his fingers hurt, everything was hurting.

_And…and there’s Dave, I know who Dave is, I know him and his goofy shades, and…I gave them to him! I did, for his birthday in December, and he always wore them, and he kept wearing them because…because he’s my best friend, they’re all my best friends, the best friends anyone could ever have…he’s all in red with his sword and his cape and his turntables…no, timetables…Time. He’s Time! The Knight of Time…and I…_

The blue of Rose’s slippers danced in his memory, because somehow he remembered her even though he was sure he had never known a girl named Rose, as his heart bizarrely ached for them and his stranger-friends’ faces passed before his mind’s eye and vanished out of sight again.

Blue. Something blue…he could feel the wind in his hair and carrying through his long, long blue hood that fluttered behind him and curled and twisted and—

_The wind…the air…th-the Heir! The Heir of Breath! I’m the Heir of Breath, I was the Heir of Breath because of the game…that game we played…but no…it was all a dream, wasn’t it? Why do I remember them?!_

He used to have the oddest dreams and nightmares, ones he could never recall upon waking but always woke him in a cold sweat and the phantom feeling of terror and fear, and now he realized they’d all been about the game, about Jade and Rose and Dave, all the adventures they’d had and the struggles they’d faced, and the dreams scared him because he didn’t understand and didn’t know and couldn’t recognize them, the fear sprung from the fact that he couldn’t remember no matter how hard he tried, and even now he struggled to identify what was real and what wasn’t. Everything was in disarray, a complete disorganized mess.

The wind outside slammed the shutters on the windows against the house and sent the papers on the table flying to the ground. He knew them. He didn’t. He did. Their names were Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider and Jade Harley…but no, he never knew a Rose or a Dave, his sister’s last name wasn’t Harley, it was Crocker, or it had been, until she changed it. But not to Harley, to English, why did he think her name was Harley? It had never been. She used to have John’s own surname, Egb—

_What?_

For some reason he couldn’t say his own surname. For some reason another name had slipped past his lips. For some reason? There was no reason! It was ridiculous…he knew his name…

He tried again.

_My name is John—_

Crocker. Crocker. Say it. Think it. Know it. He knew it. He knew who he was but his mind was in revolt. Jade left, there is no Rose, there is no Dave, but there _was_ , there had to be, why would he remember if there wasn’t?

Images waged war in his mind; he stared into the gleaming, dark piano surface at his aged face and the childish grin of a thirteen-year-old boy in a hood, playing the wind, smiled back at him, challenged him, pressed his mind to the breaking point.

_My name is John—_

It was on the tip of his tongue but it wasn’t, it was a fabrication of his strained mind but it was real, he was torn, he was two, he tried again.

_My name…_

 “MY NAME IS JOHN EGBERT!”

CRASH.

His fingers slammed down on the keys. He lost the wonderful melody, and it mutated itself into a screeching, discordant wail and echoed into silence.

He was breathing heavily and acrid bile was rising up in his throat, his stomach had dropped into freefall, he didn’t know who he was.

He got up, stumbled, ran and threw himself over the sink, waiting to throw up, coughing, gagging, his breath catching in his chest, but he wouldn’t, the foreign but inexplicably familiar stranger’s name stuck in his throat, the pictures that felt like memories hovered in his mind and slowly, finally faded, but when they left, he felt emptier than ever. It was like a part of him had been ripped away, had been absent, but he hadn’t noticed until now, and the pain was viciously real and he felt empty, so, so, empty, like he was hollow. Something, somehow, had been stolen from him, but he had no idea what, no idea why, no idea how to fix things. All he had was this deep, endless void within himself, burning like a burst-open wound.

He hunched his shoulders and began to cry bitterly for something he wasn’t supposed to realize he had lost.


End file.
